Just uncovered – Fischer's Electronic Archives

4/1/2008 – Two and a half months after the death of the great chess legend Bobby Fischer, the examination of his legal estate has yielded some intriguing information, gleaned from the hard disk of his notebook computer. Apparently the reclusive former World Champion followed the chess activities of his colleagues quite closely, and in fact corresponded with a few of them. Today we received copies of his letters.

Fischer's Electronic Archives

On the hard disk of the somewhat outdated Dell notebook experts found copies
of ChessBase 7.0, Fritz 7.0 and Fritz 10 installed, as well as a number of other
chess engines, like Rybka 2.3.2a, Shredder 10 and Fritz 5. In the directory
"MyInternetGames" the experts found a large number of games played
by an account on the Playchess.com server, where the owner had apparently achieved
a rating of 3300+.

Where the analysis was done and the Internet games were possibly played

The games in the Internet chess directory are currently being analysed, although
it is too early to say whether they were the work of Fischer himself. So far
none have been found that could be the ones he is alleged to have played
against Nigel Short in 2001. We will inform you when further results become
available.

Apart from the chess games the hard disk of the notebook also revealed a large
number of email communications that were apparently written by Fischer, dating
from the mid 70s right up to December 2007. These messages are currently being
analysed by experts to see if they address games that were played on the international
tournament circuit. For reasons of privacy our contact in Iceland deleted the
names of Fischer's correspondence partners and their email addresses in the
copies he sent us. That makes the task only slightly more daunting, since the
first names and subject lines, in many cases, make the connections more or less
obvious. Once again we will inform you if we are able to reconstruct the context
of these messages, or find any correlations between the moves given in Fischer's
messages and games actually played by the addressees. Maybe our readers
can help us in this endeavour?!

Fischer Emails

Dear Viktor,
I was glad to see that you followed my advice and played the King’sIndian Attack. 10 P-KB3 against his stupid Tartakower was nice, wasn’tit, even if you lost that game. But playing 10 P-KB3 in the Open RuyLopez was going too far. The 17th game was a cheapo. The Russians useall kinds of tricks. Forget the 27th game, shit happens. I think thatthe psychologist made you nervous. You have to fight back on thatfront as well. Complain about everything, about the color of hisshoes, the flavor of his yogurt, everything.
You asked me for advice, I can only say just play the Open Ruy again.He will be nervous and think that you have prepared something for him.With white you should continue to play 1 P-QB4 and then try 3 P-K4.Against Queen’s Gambit play the Exchange. The idea of playing the Pircwhich comes from your second Keene I think is very bad. Whatever youdo, don’t play that. It doesn’t fit your style and Karpov knows itvery well. I repeat: DO NOT play the Pirc.

Robert

PS: If you tell anybody about our correspondence I will personally
KILL you. My greetings to Petra.

Thank you for your letter. I am feeling great here. I have justfinished my new book, “60 More Memorable Games” and gave it to mypublisher here in the Philippines. I hope he doesn’t lose it, he isvery disorganized. It is my only copy.

I wish you all the best for the European Team Championship in Sweden.If you have to play Karpov, which is quite likely, I have a cool idea.Just play 1… P-QR3. The idea is …P-QN4, …B-N2, …P-K3 and then …P-B4. Itried it, later it becomes a Sicilian, nothing special. But Karpovwill be furious and will not be able to play straight. Wanna bet? Hewill probably try to stop you from playing in any of his tournaments.But what the hell, its worth it just to see his face, isn’t it?

You play like a child. In your third game how could you play N-QR4??What a terrible move. In the sixth game you exchanged queens. Why? Youcannot play without the queens, you lose the rook ending. My sisterwould have held it blindfold. 61 K-Q1 was a terrible move. In the nextgame you play the Tarrasch (the Trash). You should play King’s Indianand not this kind of bullshit. In the ninth game hadn’t you seen mygame against Saidy? The same ending with reversed colors.
0-4 after nine games, oh god. But okay, it is not lost yet. My advicefor the rest of the match is play for a draw in every game. Don’t riskanything, just hang on, tire him out. He is much older than you. Beready to grab a game when he blunders. Remember you can lose one moregame.
Copy his openings. That’s what Bronstein did against Botvinnik. Itwill drive him nuts. Play many different openings, like I did againstBoris. Try Queen’s Indian with P-QR3. With black if you must playQueen’s Gambit try the Cambridge Springs Variation. It is not as badas people think.
I am helping you against the little Russian because you are fromAzerbaijan and not a Russian. Lucky for you. I hope you never think ofmoving to Moscow!

Robert

PS: Always remember that you must not tell anybody about our
correspondence. NOBODY. You will earn my eternal hatred if you do so.

Many thanks for your letter. I can understand your complaints aboutthe match conditions, very well in fact. But why did you accept them?I would never have done it. Just stay away and let them see what theycan do.
You asked me about a weapon against his Nimzo Indian. Okay, simplyplay 4 N-B3 and after 4… P-B4 you go 5 P-KN3. I’ll bet you he won’t beable to resist and will try to refute the line with 5… N-K5. Afterthat you can play e.g. 6 Q-Q3 Q-R4 7 QxN BxN+ 8 B-Q2 BxB+ 9 NxB Q-N3and now maybe 10 PxP is an idea: 10… QxNP 11 R-QN1 Q-B6 12 Q-Q3 QxQ 13PxQ N-R3 14 P-Q4 R-QN1 15 B-N2 K-K2 16 K-K2 and Black is in trouble.

Hi Garry,
So, things are not going so bad against the little Russian. Theweather here is great. Yesterday I sat in the park with my pocketchess and analyzed the Taimanov a little and I had this idea. After1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nb5 d6 6.c4 Nf6 7.N1c3 a68.Na3 can’t we simply sac a pawn for the initiative? Okay, after 8…d59.exd5 exd5 10.cxd5 Nb4 11.Bc4 we play 11…Bg4. Now if 12.Be2 Bxe213.Qxe2+ Qe7 14.Be3 Nbxd5 15.Nc2 Nxe3 16.Nxe3 Qe6 17.0–0 Bc5 18.Rfe10–0 it is a draw. Not bad for Black? But if he plays 11.Be2 so11...Bc5 12.0-0 0-0 and now 13.Bg5 is best, with advantage. Worse is13.Bf3 because of 13...Bf5 14.Bg5 Re8! 15.Qd2 b5! and the knights areout of play.
I warn you, NEVER tell anyone you got this idea from me. You can tellpeople that Adorjan found it during a tram ride or something likethat.
Hey, hang on, I see now that it doesn’t work because of: 12.Be3 Bxe313.Qa4+ Nd7 14.Qxb4 Bc5 15.Qe4+ Kf8 16.0–0 b5 17.Nc2 and White simplyhas an extra pawn. Shit. Anyway, I don’t think Karpov will find itover the board.
Yours, Bobby
PS: DO NOT show our correspondence to ANYBODY. I hope you are happywith my short algebraic, which is a pain, but if you have trouble withthe descriptive I will have to adapt.

I am following your little match on the Internet. His game does not impress
me. He looks weak and pathetic. I think you are close to victory. You can do
it! As I said, you must keep switching openings. That is poison for Russians.
1.d4 in the fifth game was exactly right. I a glad you were able to remember
the variation we analyzed on your balcony in Szeged.

I wish you all the best for the tournament in Wijk. You asked me for new ideas.
Okay, here is one I had on the Moscow Variation. After 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3
Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg5 h6 6.Bh4 dxc4 7.e4 g5 8.Bg3 b5 9.Be2 Bb7 10.0–0 Nbd7
11.Ne5 Bg7 why can’t you simply sac the knight on f7? 12.Nxf7 Kxf7 and
then continue with 13.e5 Nd5 14.Ne4? What can Black do? After e.g. 14…
Ke7 you play 15.Nd6 and now e.g. Qb6 16.Bg4 Raf8 17.Qc2. That is the point.
The queen comes to g6. If now 17… Qxd4 then 18.Qg6 Qxg4 19.Qxg7+ Kd8 20.Nxb7+
Kc8 and now 21.a4 is very strong. If then 21… b4 you simply play 22.Rac1
c3 23.bxc3 b3 24.c4 Rfg8 25.Nd6+ Kc7 26.Qf7 Rf8 and now 27.h3. That really should
win. 27.cxd5 is not good I think, because of 27…Rxf7. And after 28.Rxc6+
Kb8 29.Nxf7 you can play. 29...Qe2 and after 30.Nxh8 there is the awful 30…Qxf1+
31.Kxf1 b2. Well, check it all with the Cheperinof guy. Say he came up with
it if it works. DO NOT say you got it from me!

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Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!